The St. Louis U High robotics team placed third in an off-season competition held at Lindenwood University last weekend to introduce the new robotics members to the competition.

SLUH competed against 32 other schools in a contest that was modeled after last year’s final competition of the season. Using the same robot from last year, teams had to move cargo from one area to an awaiting rocket ship. For the first 15 seconds of the challenge, the operator was cast in complete darkness, and had to rely on cameras and sensors on the robot to maneuver it around the course. After time was up, the blindfolds were taken off and the competition proceeded.

As the robot picked up the cargo (large playground balls) from the different areas, a system was needed to keep the cargo from falling out of the robot. SLUH devised a system using suction cups to pull circular disks up to keep the cargo in place.

At the end of the match, SLUH saw an opportunity to gain extra points by having the robot climb up to a 19-inch platform. 

“We really saw that we could gain a lot of points by climbing at the very end that scored us a bunch of points and really helped us out,” said Robotics Club moderator Craig Hinders.

SLUH ended the preliminary round 4-1, losing only when their robot twisted and fell over, breaking the lift mechanism and preventing SLUH from scoring enough points.

Still making the cutoff in fifth place, SLUH advanced, and went 2-0 in the quarterfinals. But then in the semifinals, SLUH ran into some bad luck when another robot fell onto SLUH’s robot, breaking the main power switch and disabling the robot.

Overall, SLUH was still able to finish strong, placing third in the tournament.           

The student leaders and the moderators of the Robotics Club saw the tournament as a major success in achieving their main goal.

“The main focus of this competition was to introduce freshmen and new people to robotics to the actual Robotics Competition,” said club president senior Luke Giunta. “The competition provided the Robotics Club an opportunity to teach the new members about how the competition works and key skills that are needed in order to be successful.”

Some things the team wanted to teach the newcomers were the skills of scouting—analyzing other teams to determine the best ones to ally with and controlling the robot. 

“It was all about giving them the experience of being at a competition, with less pressure,” said Blittschau. 

With the robotics season not starting until January, the club is planning to educate the new members on another important topic: how to build and program a robot. The robot the team is currently working to build is a rugby ball launcher.

“It (the rugby ball launcher) ties in a lot of the basic components of the robot that we will begin building staring in January,” said Hinders. “The kids will order the parts and start building it and program it like the robot we will build in January.”

“It was a great experience overall and very beneficial for all who were able to show up,” said Blittschau. “We are feeling very good about the actual season.”